Extreme Independence

The inability to receive support from others is a trauma response.
Your “I don’t need anyone, I’ll just do it all myself” conditioning is a survival tactic. And you needed it to shield your heart from abuse, neglect, betrayal, and disappointment from those who could not or would not be there for you.
From the parent who was absent and abandoned you by choice or the parent who was never home from working three jobs to feed and house you.
From the lovers who offered sexual intimacy but never offered a safe haven that honored your heart.
From the friendships and family who ALWAYS took more than they ever gave.
From all the situations when someone told you “we’re in this together” or “I got you” then abandoned you, leaving you to pick up the pieces when shit got real, leaving you to handle your part and their part, too.
From all the lies and all the betrayals.
You learned along the way that you just couldn’t really trust people. Or that you could trust people, but only up to a certain point.
Extreme-independence IS. A. TRUST. ISSUE.
You learnt: if I don’t put myself in a situation where I rely on someone, I won’t have to be disappointed when they don’t show up for me, or when they drop the ball... because they will ALWAYS drop the ball EVENTUALLY right?
You may even have been intentionally taught this protection strategy by generations of hurt ancestors who came before you.

Though trauma feels like the word of the moment; just like trigger, narcissist, and processing, but these words are also around because we are gaining a greater understanding of them and their impact. I'm seeing more how the trauma I experienced shaped my perception, but more importantly still control my actions. It's painful to read pieces like the one above, but also so helpful as I need things told to me many times, and many ways, before I take them in as truth. 

I am extremely independent and wear this like a badge of honor. I don't like help even when I desperately need it. I will not ask for help unless I've truly exhausted every option I can manage on my own. I don't want to need anyone. I detest anything that I can't do on my own. Yes, I go to the doctor but I seethe inside that I need them. I take my car to a mechanic but I spend the entire time fearful as they can easily manipulate me due to my not being able to do it on my own. 

When I was moving out of the home I'd lived in for over a decade, as I was getting divorced and going to live completely alone for the first time in my life, I wanted to do it alone. I had friends asking for help and I turned them down. Finally one said, "You are hurting me to not accept my help." That stopped me cold. I never want to hurt anyone. I accepted but it's still in the back of my mind that I owe these people who helped me. I can easily give but I don't like to receive. If there is too much help, gifts, even love, showed to me then I get panicked and fearful. 

There are two things at the core of this: survival and shame. My protector self feels if I have to depend on anyone for anything then they might let me down and I won't survive it. My mind is continually in hyper drive looking for ways I could be lead to my doom. Yet there is also so much shame in the things I can't do. One area I suck at is anything having to do with home maintenance and repair. There are so many things that all other adult seem to manage and yet I just can't do it. Painting, hanging curtains (blinds, shades, etc...), installing anything, measuring, leveling, I suck on every level and it eats at me. 

The obvious work around answer here is to pay someone to do these things. Yet there is terror that they'll screw me over in some way. Fear that they'll shame me for not being able to do basic stuff. Ludicrous because customers like me keep them in business but this is how my mind works. I get scared to make the call, scared I won't say the right words, scared I'll explain it wrong, scared I'll look stupid. I even had a friend tell me her friend's husband does side work and I could pay him to do all the things. Yet I feel so dumb and immobile.

Working from home for the past year my office has become the place I'm at constantly. This also means my cat wants to be by me. He managed to destroy my curtains and I was left with windows with nothing on them. So put something up, right? Well I can't. I fuck it up. I don't know how. In one of Facebook's better moments I found some curtain hooks (wrong word, I don't know the right words) that you could nail into the window frame and not deal with drilling into the wall and whatever other nonsense is involved with putting up a curtain. I bought them. Well again, my measuring sucks and I bought them too small. Returned, bought new ones, and amazing grace I actually did it. 

I did it by myself. While I'm a little proud of this minor moment it also makes me sad and ashamed. This feels like something "normal people" can do. This feels laughable that a grown ass woman, who has owned many homes, would consider this an accomplishment.

Extreme-independence is a preemptive strike against heartbreak.
So, you don’t trust anyone.
And you don’t trust yourself, either, to choose people.
To trust is to hope, to trust is to be vulnerable.
“Never again,” you vow.
But no matter how you dress it up and display it proudly to make it seem like this level of independence is what you always wanted to be, in truth it’s your wounded, scarred, broken heart behind a protective brick wall.
Impenetrable. Nothing gets in. No hurt gets in. But no love gets in either.
Fortresses and armor are for those in battle, or who believe the battle is coming.
It’s a trauma response.